Frequently Asked Questions

1) Is Stop Dieting – Start Living just another diet?

Stop Dieting -Start Living is not a diet. There is no food deprivation, no calorie counting or food weighing and you do not even need to weigh yourself. It involves no surgery; there are no special food supplements to buy and there is no special equipment! Where weight reduction is required there obviously has to be an excess of calorie expenditure over calorie consumption but this is achieved by learning to listen to your body in a natural, intuitive way and overcoming your personal barriers with God’s help.

2) Is it safe for anyone to do?

The Stop Dieting – Start Living course is endorsed by a growing number of health professionals, including GPs and is also being used by some Parish Nurses. It is always advisable for anyone to seek medical advice before embarking on any weight regulation programme.

Dr Sue Kenneally: ‘I believe that you are what you think, and that to be truly successful when both losing weight and maintaining that loss the main battle is with the mind, not the body. The Stop Dieting~ Start Living course enables people to be ‘transformed by the renewing of their minds’ by teaching sound Biblical and physical principles around the subject of food and weight loss, and by challenging the unhelpful thought processes that are so often the cause of overweight and obesity. It also removes the need for a legalistic diet, replacing this with a God centred, faith based approach to weight management.’

3) Is it suitable for non-Christians?

The Stop Dieting – Start Living course is unashamedly Christian in content, but it is also scientifically sound and authoritative in regard to associated health issues. The core principles of listening to one’s hunger and satisfaction signals in order to determine when and how much to eat (known sometimes as either Awareness Eating or Intuitive Eating) is advocated by many health professionals both Christian and secular. The book gives Biblical credence to this approach and also provides valuable tools to help people overcome emotional eating within a Christian framework. Where the course is followed in the context of a church group, it is presented in a non-threatening way and there is no pressure for participants to conform to a Christian philosophy or to receive prayer ministry. According to reports, non-Christians, providing that they have an open mind, have been comfortable with the Christian approach. Sue’s DVD ‘In Depth’ is a useful way of introducing people to the programme which can then be followed up with either the book or a church course.

4) How long will it take for me to lose weight?

This will depend on a number of factors: the degree of ‘diet mentality’ which has to be overcome; the amount of emotional baggage a person is carrying and one’s openness to receiving God’s help. Fit For Life Forever is much more than a weight loss course – it is a means of helping people break free from the curse of dieting and to begin to enjoy food freely, without guilt and yet responsibly.

5) Will the weight stay off?

Once you have learned to modify your food intake to correspond with your own body’s needs there is no reason why you should not be able to maintain a healthy weight as a permanent lifestyle. Temptation to overeat is always with us to some degree but you will be given powerful practical and spiritual tools to maximise your success. You may not even need to monitor your weight by using bathroom scales!

6) Do I need to exercise?

Exercise is always to be recommended whether a person wishes to lose weight or not. Done at a moderate to fast pace it does assist in fat reduction, but the main health benefits are improved cardio-vascular performance, lowering of blood pressure, greater mobility, strength and endurance and a sense of well-being. The Ebook course includes information regarding physical activity, but even where a person is medically impeded from doing exercise the course will still be of considerable benefit.

7) I’m diabetic. Will the course work for me?

Diabetes, due to an inefficient pancreas, does present an added challenge to weight control, but it also gives an added stimulus because weight loss will almost certainly improve your overall health and lower the risk of acquiring other medical complications. Fit For Life Forever advocates a low GI diet as being healthier for all and this is particularly true if one wishes to reduce the risk of getting diabetes or controlling the disease. It will be important not to put yourself at risk by letting yourself get over-hungry and you may need to eat little and often, but even within the medical constraints of the disease you should be able to achieve a good measure of success. Discuss the course with your doctor first.

8) I’m on medication. Will this affect my ability to do the course?

Those who are prescribed to take steroids, anti-depressants or the contraceptive pill often find that they gain weight. This is an added challenge, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t have some measure of success as you eliminate all the psychological and emotional reasons for inappropriate eating. See if your doctor can put you on other medication which will not affect your weight so much.

9) Is Stop Dieting – Start Living safe for children and adolescents?

Young children, left to themselves, will usually eat intuitively – the way that Stop Dieting – Start Living promotes. It is only when we seek to override their natural hunger, introducing social reasons for eating and using it for reward and/or consolation that their natural balance is upset. The course is not specifically written for children, but parents will benefit from the insights given in the book and therefore be helped in knowing how best to approach any disordered eating a child may have. Disordered eating among adolescents, especially girls, is often linked to low self-esteem which is well covered by the book and course.

10) Would the course help those with eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia nervosa?

Whilst Stop Dieting – Start Living has not been specifically written to tackle these extremes, it has been used successfully by some counsellors to assist clients in developing healthier habits once they have achieved a level of readiness to follow such advice. The emotional roots of both excessive eating and self-imposed starvation are often the same, howbeit with a different outcome, so whilst not every section of the course may be equally relevant, much of the underlying teaching is.